Restoring Our Spiritual Sense

From Fr. Zuhlsdorf:

“There is only one problem in the whole world: restoring spiritual sense in people. Showering on them something like a Gregorian chant.” – Saint-Exupéry

Simple? Too simple? Perhaps. Faith is the last thing that sinners lose, after charity, first, and then hope. Believers sin all the time.

Ven. Pius XII said that the sin of the 20th century was the loss of the sense of sin. We have to restore a “spiritual sense”, which includes a sense of sin and a sense of the transcendent. Both of these have been undermined for many decades now, first by the horrors of the 20th century and the cynicism that resulted from post-war prosperity, and, within Holy Church herself, from disobedience to God and through the hijacking of the Second Vatican Council. In short, we are spiritually crippled because of attacks on our identity from without and from within. Many have become spiritual and temporal cripples without a sense of the transcendent and without a sense of sin… and without love or hope of faith.

Holy Catholic Church is the only structure in the world proportioned to the task of addressing our metastasizing spiritual cancer. Only the Church, whose constitution is divine, can bring the Saviour’s healing and purifiying words and deeds into the public square and propose them as an alternative to the culture of death that now reigns.

The Church, however, cannot make effective contribution in the public square if we Catholics don’t know who we are and do not put our identity into concrete living.

We cannot recover our Catholic identity without true worship of God as Catholics.

A revitalization of our Catholic worship is the sine qua non for the renewal of our Church, our voice in the public square, and the New Evangelization.

Why would we pursue such a project? Not because of societal artifacts or knock-on effects in cultural, or good taste, or even for the sake of safety.

We must do this in charity, in imitation of Christ’s own Sacrifical love demonstrated on the Cross.

So, why do any of this? Why take on the challenges and subject ourselves to the work and ridicule?

Because we want to keep as many people out of Hell as possible.

We want to share the happiness of heaven with as many of our neighbors as possible, so that God’s glory maybe magnified by that many more joyous hearts fulfilled.

We must reclaim our worship, our identity, and our voice in the public square so that we can carry out the work Christ entrusted to Holy Church: the salvation of souls.